WV Coal Member Meeting 2024 1240x200 1 1

Even More Penn State CO2 Recycling


We have cited Dr. Chunsan Song, of Penn State University, relative to Carbon Dioxide recycling, several times of late, and we herein present his bona fides and credentials:
 
"Chunshan Song is director of applied catalysis in the Energy Laboratory at the Energy Institute, and associate professor of fuel science in the Department of Energy and Geo-Environmental Engineering at Pennsylvania State University (206 Hosler Building, University Park, PA 16802; His research interests include catalytic fuel processing, reforming for syngas and hydrogen production from natural gas and carbon dioxide, shape-selective catalysis, synthesis and application of catalytic materials, conversion of hydrocarbon resources, and fuel chemistry. He has won several awards including the Wilson Award 
for Outstanding Research at Penn State in 2000 and the NEDO Fellowship Award from Japan in 1998. He received his B.S. degree in chemical engineering from Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China, and an M.S. degree and Ph.D. in applied chemistry from Osaka University, Osaka, Japan."
 
With the enclosed link, attached file and following excerpt, we document even further that the science exists which would enable us to profit from the wise use of our Carbon Dioxide, as opposed to being fleeced through misinformed attempts to dispose of it.
 
As follows:
 
"Tri-reforming: A new process for reducing CO2 emissions;
January 2001
Chunshan Song
 
"Researchers at Penn State have developed a new process for the effective conversion and use of carbon dioxide in flue gas from power plants. The threat of global warming has fueled worldwide efforts to develop 
technology that reduces carbon dioxide emissions. The conversion and utilization of CO2 present an interesting paradigm to scientists and engineers because CO2 is an important source of carbon for fuels and future chemical feedstocks.
 
In general, CO2 can be separated, recovered, and purified from concentrated CO2 sources by two or more steps based on absorption, adsorption, or membrane separation. Even the recovery of CO2 from      concentrated sources requires substantial energy input. The separation and purification steps can produce pure CO2 from power plants’ flue gases, but they also add considerable cost to the conversion or sequestration system. Current CO2 separation processes require significant amounts of energy that reduce a power plant’s net electricity output by as much as 20%. Although new technology developments could make this recovery easier to handle and more economical to operate in power plants, it is highly desirable to develop novel ways to use the CO2 in flue gases without going through the separation step.
 
The tri-reforming process we are developing at Pennsylvania State University, is a three-step reaction process. It avoids the separation step and has the promise of being cost-efficient for producing      industrially useful synthesis gas.
            
Using flue gas to convert CO2

Flue gases from fossil fuel-based electricity-generating units represent the major concentrated CO2 sources in the United States. If CO2 is separated, as much as 100 MW for a typical 500-MW coal-fired power plant would be necessary for today’s CO2 capture processes based on alkanolamines. It would be highly desirable to use the flue gas mixtures for CO2 conversion without the preseparation step. On the basis of our research, we believe that there is a unique advantage of using flue gases directly, rather than preseparated and purified CO2 from flue gases, for the proposed tri-reforming process.
 
In our proposed tri-reforming process, CO2 from the flue gas does not need to be separated. In fact, water and oxygen along with CO2 in the waste flue gas from fossil fuel–based power plants will be used to tri-reform natural gas and produce synthesis gas (syngas).
      
When CO2 reforming is coupled to steam reforming, this problem (carbon deposition - JtM) can be mitigated effectively. This carbon formation in CO2 reforming can be reduced by adding oxygen. Direct partial oxidation of methane to produce syngas and partial combustion of methane for energy-efficient autothermal syngas production are being explored.
 
The combination of dry reforming with steam reforming can accomplish two important missions: to produce syngas with desired H2/CO ratios and mitigate the carbon formation that is significant for dry reforming.       Integrating steam reforming and partial oxidation with CO2 reforming could dramatically reduce or eliminate carbon formation on reforming catalyst, thus increasing catalyst life and process efficiency. Therefore, the 
proposed tri-reforming can solve two important problems that are encountered in individual processing. Incorporating oxygen in the reaction generates heat in situ that can be used to increase energy efficiency; 
oxygen also reduces or eliminates the carbon formation on the reforming catalyst. The tri-reforming can be achieved with natural gas and flue gases using the waste heat in the power plant and the heat generated in 
situ from oxidation with the oxygen that is present in flue gas.
 
The tri-reforming process ... is the key step in the recently proposed CO2-based tri-generation of fuels, chemicals, and electricity, ... . In principle, once the syngas with the desired H2/CO ratio is produced from tri-reforming, it can be used to produce liquid fuels by established routes such as F–T synthesis and to manufacture industrial chemicals such as methanol and acetic acid.
 
...  tri-reforming of natural gas using flue gas from power plants appears to be feasible and safe ...".
 
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As we many times documented: The technologies exist that would enable us both to convert our abundant coal into the liquid fuels we need; and, to recycle the primary by-product of our coal use, Carbon Dioxide, into even more liquid fuels and chemical manufacturing raw materials.
 
Why aren't we employing any of those technologies, especially in US Coal Country?